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The web runs on tolerance

shkspr.mobi

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Re: The web runs on tolerance

#71

Post by tadfisher »

raincole wrote: post #58
gldrk wrote: post #54

>You can make your HTML as malformed as you like and the web-browser will do its best to display the page for you. I love the todepond website, but the source-code makes me break out in a cold sweat. Yet it renders just fine. It renders just fine because it is syntactically valid HTML. HTML is not and is not supposed to be XML. It is originally an SGML application described by its Document Type Definition and SGML De…

> that browsers do try their best to render objectively broken markup And it's a cancerous engineering principle. People say NullPointerException is the one billion error, but (the misuse of) Postel's Law on web frontend is a multi-billion error. Once one mainstream browser decided to "tolerate" an error, websites would start relying on that behavior, making it a permanent feature of web. If browsers were less tolera…

The tolerance is now precisely specified in the HTML5 parsing algorithm, far from "try their best". This is good, because browsers fail in mostly the same ways as each other, humans do not need a CS degree to handwrite Web content, and your tools can still write perfectly valid HTML5.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#72

Post by edent »

Nextgrid wrote: post #31

The right-wing extremism we now have in the US is the expected knee-jerk reaction to the left-wing extremism that came before it. In both cases there's a few true believers and a lot of opportunists who use the cause as a way to further their own agenda. It happened with the left (the master branch rename being the stupidest example), it's now happening in the right, with big words and performative actions such as IC…

The idea that the US has experienced anything even close to moderate left-wing policies is - from the perspective of an outsider - laughable.

I'd love to know what extreme positions you think US politicians have enforced and what the moderate position is.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#73

Post by raincole »

tadfisher wrote: post #71
raincole wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that browsers do try their best to render objectively broken markup And it's a cancerous engineering principle. People say NullPointerException is the one billion error, but (the misuse of) Postel's Law on web frontend is a multi-billion error. Once one mainstream browser decided to "tolerate" an error, websites would start relying on that behavior, making it a permanent feature of web. If browsers were less tolera…

The tolerance is now precisely specified in the HTML5 parsing algorithm, far from "try their best". This is good, because browsers fail in mostly the same ways as each other, humans do not need a CS degree to handwrite Web content, and your tools can still write perfectly valid HTML5.

Obviously now things are better than IE5/6 era, but I can't help but think people without CS degree have to hand tweaking HTML because people who with ones failed to design proper tools and abstraction for them.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#74

Post by bluefirebrand »

tclancy wrote: post #11
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #4

But in contrast, web communities run on moderation, i.e. a sort of intolerance of bad content. The lesson is that technical issues and social issues really don't mix. You can't conclude anything from one versus the other. Case in point, cryptocurrency was supposed to be the anarchist's dream, but now it's being adopted by some central banks.

> technical issues and social issues really don't mix I don’t think that’s true in the least. I think it’s true there are no technical solutions to social problems, but any and all technology comes from people forming societies and seeking solutions. This comment feels the same as people saying “Stick to sports” about athletes talking politics. Everything is political. If you don’t think something is, it tends to be…

> Everything is political

This is such a tedious worldview

Maybe everything is political, but it doesn't have to be that way

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#75

Post by gldrk »

raincole wrote: post #58
gldrk wrote: post #54

>You can make your HTML as malformed as you like and the web-browser will do its best to display the page for you. I love the todepond website, but the source-code makes me break out in a cold sweat. Yet it renders just fine. It renders just fine because it is syntactically valid HTML. HTML is not and is not supposed to be XML. It is originally an SGML application described by its Document Type Definition and SGML De…

> that browsers do try their best to render objectively broken markup And it's a cancerous engineering principle. People say NullPointerException is the one billion error, but (the misuse of) Postel's Law on web frontend is a multi-billion error. Once one mainstream browser decided to "tolerate" an error, websites would start relying on that behavior, making it a permanent feature of web. If browsers were less tolera…

Postel’s law allows a degree of forward compatibility. This was important before continuous software updates were practical. User-facing code is the best place to apply it: I want my text editor to highlight invalid source code on a best effort basis, whereas the compiler should promptly bail out.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#76

Post by mvdtnz »

edent wrote: post #28
mvdtnz wrote: post #15

This author needs to either be specific about who and what they're talking about or not bother. I don't have the context to understand their specific complaints and I'm not motivated to seek it out.

The author (me) wasn't writing for you. If you haven't been paying attention to the various bigots trying to rouse hate from their position of technology prominence, then I don't think my post will convince you of anything

You strike me as a deeply unpleasant person.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#77

Post by franga2000 »

auxiliarymoose wrote: post #42
verandaguy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough my impression of JS (the kind you'd write in 2007 more than the type you see now, mind you) is that it's remarkably tolerant; many idioms and operations which would cause, in other languages, runtime errors or compile errors, would just get steamrolled over in JS because of just how much built-in flexibility the uber-weak type system (plus liberal use of the prototype pattern in the stdlib) allows for. -…

It is also (nearly) impossible to completely crash a web page. There isn't a main loop that can panic out. No matter where an exception gets thrown, the overall application keeps going and responding to events. Can't access a network resource? API returns an unexpected error? Library crashes? Browser extension breaks something? Doesn't matter. The user can still view and scroll the page, and the rest of it will proba…

Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).

The amount of articles on HN that render perfectly, then vanish a second later and are replaced by this error message is insane. Yes, I'm using an old unmaintained Android HN reader with a questionable webview. No, that's not an excuse to delete a perfectly rendered from right in front of my eyes.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#79

Post by d--b »

I mean no offense but comparing fault tolerance to being tolerant with other people only works because it’s the same word that’s used for both meanings. But that has absolutely nothing to do.

If it weren’t the case, you’d argue that people pushing XHTML were intolerant bastards.

Re: The web runs on tolerance

#80

Post by d--b »

didgetmaster wrote: post #7

This guy lost me when he started talking about diversity issues instead of tech. I couldn't care less about the race, gender, or sexual orientation of the person(s) who created the hardware or software that I use. Does it work? Is it easy to understand and use? These are the things I am interested in. I am reminded of an early cartoon of a dog sitting at a computer saying 'On the Internet, no one knows you are a dog!…

Ah I knew it was about people when I saw the LGBT flag as a background.
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